With the growth of computer and information systems and related network technologies such as wireless and Internet communications, ever increasing amounts of electronic information are communicated, transferred and subsequently processed by users and/or systems. As an example, electronic mail, text messaging, facsimile transmission, and voice mail are all popular methods for communicating such information. In particular, with the advent of the Internet, exchanging email has become an important factor influencing why many people acquire computers, and the process more and more people use to communicate and exchange information.
Conventional email applications provide users the ability to view custom directories that store email addresses, names, telephone numbers, and other contact information for individuals they frequently communicate with via email. Some conventional email applications provide a user the ability to view a sorted list of people in a directory based on the display name of the user, and provide the ability to search the directory based on the display name (e.g., first and last name), first name, or last name of a particular individual. However, in some cultures, such name data can have two forms. For example, there is a written form of the display such as shown on a business card that cannot be sorted in any reasonable fashion. There is also a “phonetic” form of the display name used to pronounce the written form, and is a type of “meta data” that goes along with the display name. For example, in Japan, the display name for most people is written using Kanji script, and the phonetic display name is written using Katakana or Hiragana script, also called Yomi or Furigana.
Since the phonetic form is the only way to spell names in these cultures, a custom directory that only displays the un-pronounceable (i.e., non-phonetic) display names can make it difficult and/or time consuming for a user of the directory to locate, for example, a phone number for a particular individual listed in the directory, especially if the user does not know the spelling of the non-phonetic form of that individual's name. As a result, such directories can be inefficient for users in such cultures.